Going to a Desert Unknown
by Ninnik Nishukan
Summary: Puberty is gross and mystifying, even when you have somebody to share it with. Or maybe especially when you do. Coraline/Wybie. Some sexual situations, not for children. Sequel to "Kappa!"


**Going to a Desert Unknown**

Ninnik Nishukan

* * *

**Summary:** Puberty is gross and mystifying, even when you have somebody to share it with. Or maybe especially when you do. Coraline/Wybie. Some sexual situations, not for children.

**Sequel ****to **_**Kappa! **_**(all ****my **_**Coraline**_** stories ****are ****related).**

* * *

The fact that his voice breaks doesn't surprise her. The zits don't surprise her. The sudden growth spurts don't surprise her. All of these things spell out uncool, weird and awkward, which are words she already associates with Wybie in one way or another.

No, it's the mood swings that get her.

Suddenly, he's snapping back at her when she playfully insults him, even though she's basically done that from day one and it never seemed to bother him much before. And oh, how he snaps. Practically barks. She tries not to take it personally, what he says, but it's not always easy. She never knew he could be _mean_. And it's unsettling, utterly unanticipated, like being a lion attacked by a sheep. She finds she's altogether stopped calling him Why-were-you-born. She supposes it was sort of childish of her, anyway.

Suddenly, he's storming off at any old time. Suddenly, he's kicking things, even his precious motorized bike. Suddenly, he's throwing things. He even gets in a fight at school, and what's more, he _wins_ it— okay, so it's only with some skinny little kid their own age, but still.

It's not that he doesn't smile anymore, not that he isn't nice, not that he isn't Wybie anymore— no, he still does crazy stuff like making her watch _Ghostbusters_ over and over and going on the net in an attempt to figure out how to convert the vacuum cleaner into a proton pack, insisting they would be a kickass ghostbusting duo (they already have experience), and he _still_ has his heart set on going all the way up to Salem to free the spirits of the people who were forcibly committed to Oregon State Hospital (yeah, he's a romantic, who knew?) and finding out more about where that darn kappa came from, not to mention where Mr. B buried it.

The fact is, though, that sweet, nervous, enthusiastic Wyborne Lovat has also become prickly, sulky and angry with great unpredictability. She's halfway through _Dr. __Jekyll __and __Mr. __Hyde_ before she realizes why she's had the urge to read it, and chortles to herself in her bed, before she groans, simply exhausted with him. Why can't he get a grip?

One day, he gets so worked up he drives his fist through the ancient drywall of her room. She simply stares at him, at his face, at his fist, can't even remember what they were arguing about. He stares back, ducks his head and quietly climbs out through her window, dropping down the drainpipe. It rattles precariously. He's really too big to climb it now, has been for a while already.

Coraline sighs and hangs a poster up over the hole in the wall. Another hole to brick over and forget.

* * *

Another day, when he chooses to storm off when she makes a comment about his clothes (or maybe it was his nerdily high test scores, who even knows anymore), she watches him disappear into the woods on his bike, and she picks up her umbrella and goes to knock on his door to talk to his grandmother, who seems surprised but pleased to see her and invites her in for tea.

"It's just hormones, honey," Gramma explains, when Coraline reluctantly presents her problems to her. "Some people get it worse than others, that's all."

"I thought _girls_ were supposed to get it the worst," says Coraline, frowning, "and I don't feel much different, mood-wise."

Gramma gives her a look that manages to convey, very delicately, that Coraline might've been pretty moody and volatile to begin with.

Coraline drinks her tea, red in the face and pouty. "So how long is he gonna be like that?"

Gramma shrugs. "Well, he's fourteen now. That's sort of the worst of it. It's gonna get better, maybe around fifteen or sixteen. And if you think Wybie's bad, you shoulda seen his father…he was _impossible_ to be around at this age!"

Coraline groans. A year or two seemed like an eternity at eleven, and it's not much better at fourteen. It'd almost be easier if he'd been possessed or something, then she could've just had somebody (never mind who) perform an exorcism and it'd be over with. But she appreciates the fact that he doesn't even have a father to ask about these sorts of things. She, at least, can ask her mother for Advil without having to explain herself. So she'll let him rage on until he's finished.

She knows this is the age when a lot of friends drift apart, and considering the current circumstances, she can see how it might easily happen, but it's also kind of hard to drift apart when you're not only neighbors, but the only two teenagers around for what seems like miles.

Not to mention she sort of likes the idiot.

* * *

Fifteen finally rolls around, and now it's not just the angry outbursts anymore. Now, he's suddenly dropping like a stone in class as well. Wybie doesn't seem to realize that people going through the worst of puberty need a lot more sleep, especially if they're a big, hyperactive spaz.

She's exacerbated, almost insulted, when she finds out the reason he's so sleepy sometimes (embarrassing himself at school and ruining their after school hanging out time by being even more sluggish than the banana slugs crawling around their feet as she's trying to show him a new book she's been reading). It's because he's staying up too late and playing _computer __games_, of all things! She doesn't tell him she'd been worried he might've been having nightmares or something, four year old memories finally coming back to haunt him, because she almost feels cheated that the reality's so mundane, and she doesn't want to start up a discussion about nightmares. Hers occasionally still resurface, although they're usually polite enough to confine themselves to the weekend, so her school life doesn't suffer. Hah.

"Gahd, you're such a _geek_, _Wyborne_," she tells him flatly as she yet again finds him on the computer when she comes over to visit one Friday evening.

He barely reacts, only snorts. "So? Tell me something I don't know, Jonesy."

"You need to get out more," she insists, hanging over his shoulder.

"I'm outside _all __the __time_," he reminds her in a pleasant tone of voice that ticks her off.

She grimaces at him. "I meant with actual _people_."

"Just let me finish this game," he whines.

"Don't try that with me, I'm not your grandma," she says dryly, cuffs him on the back of the head. "I know it's online and could go on forever and ever and ever…"

He scowls at her and slaps her wrist when she tries to at least turn off his screen, but nevertheless abandons his computer in the end.

Coraline drags him far down the road and out to a party in the woods, where there are snacks and games and some people even have a couple of beers and cigarettes stashed away. She's not popular (you don't get to be when you live in a weird house and have a weird friend and weird interests), but she's still an attractive girl, which means she's invited by default. She tries to talk him into joining a game of Truth or Dare (ironically played, of course, because they're too old to need games as an excuse to make out, hahah, right?), but he says no, seems to withdraw almost right away, sort of turning in on himself like an armadillo. She hangs back for a few minutes, because there's a boy there from her class who's less of an idiot than the others and kinda-sorta cute, but eventually, she follows Wybie further into the woods, ignoring the catcalls behind her.

Some kids at school have already nicknamed them the Mulder and Scully of Ashland. Serves them right for talking about spooky phenomena in public, she supposes, but she's reluctant to examine the fact that it's also because one is rarely seen without the other and they do all their school projects together; often on bizarre subjects, whenever they think they can get away with it. Wybie hasn't said anything, but she suspects that the fight he got into at fourteen might've been because of their new nickname.

Sometimes (often) she's embarrassed, nearly remembering why she wanted him to lose the ability to speak, once upon a time. She tries to break out of the duo for a while, thinking _this __can't __be __my __life_ and doing the next school project with Jenny from class instead, fleeing to Pontiac to visit her old friends or attempting to join the field hockey team (and getting kicked off for bruising too many shins, reminding her that Wybie may not be the only spaz).

It's easy to get sucked back into their little duo, though. His enthusiasm can be very contagious, he knows her too well, and besides, he's the only one she can discuss the Other World with…and she has more fun with him than anybody else, forgetting why she ever wanted him to stop talking for good even when he says really immature and brainless things, but she'd never, ever tell him that.

There are birds chattering in the trees as she passes, and when she finds him sitting by a stream, poking at a dead bug with a stick, it sounds to her as if they're snickering at her.

They end up throwing rocks off of a cliff together for about an hour instead of partying, and she feels lame, but there's gratitude rolling off of him in almost tangible waves, and she can't leave, not even sure she wants to.

It's ridiculous how he can face down ancient, twisted evil with her but can't attend a stupid, last minute forest thing that can barely even be called a party. Or maybe it was just the prospect of kissing girls he barely knows in front of guys he barely knows (most of whom think he's just a nerd) as part of a stupid game he's never played before that rattled him. Even so…he's been attacked both by a creature made entirely by needles and a hungry water demon, for Pete's sake. You'd think the boy wouldn't spook very easily.

In the end, when she starts feeling as if he might be contemplating taking her hand, a sort of hopeful hopelessness about him (reminding her irresistibly, horribly, briefly of the Other Wybie), she gets up and announces she's going back to the party. By the time they get back, however, the party-goers have scattered, an empty bag of tortilla chips and a couple of empty cans of soda the only evidence left behind to reassure them there was ever a party there in the first place.

Wybie bends down to pick up the garbage.

Coraline experiences a burst of warmth in her chest for him. Her mother and father taught her never to litter, and not even teenage carelessness has changed Coraline's opinion on this particular rule. Looks like his grandmother's taught him the same.

In some ways, Wybie's kind of different is very good.

They go home. They have curfews.

* * *

It's not just her, she realizes. He's watching her, too. It's so easy to forget, while you're busy observing people and taking mental notes, that people are also observing _you_.

They're sixteen now, and he's dropped the unflattering, alien anger somewhere along the way, but he's still different from before. Quieter, even though his voice has stopped breaking. Towering above her in height, his limbs long and ungainly. Limbs that seem to get in her way too often, limbs that seem to _want_ to be in her way, be near her. His hands and feet were always a bit bigger than hers, but now they seem like they could eclipse the moon. Now they make her wonder about things she shouldn't be wondering about.

Coraline catches him looking at things in her room whenever they sit there doing their homework together; a skirt on the floor, a bra dangling from the back of a chair, a box of tampons on her desk.

He doesn't stutter or blush like some sort of prissy comedy character, or grin like a teenage pervert. He simply watches these things, looking thoughtful.

Watches _her_. Watches her face, her new reading glasses (damn your genes, Dad), his eyes following the fall of her hair, longer now and fire truck red (she's thinking of deep purple next), down to her shoulders. Yes, his gaze drops to her chest, just like it did at thirteen, fourteen and fifteen, and probably more now that she's actually got some chest to speak of (she's glad she didn't take after her mother in this respect, but rather her grandmother on her father's side), but he doesn't make her feel like slapping him. He doesn't make her that uncomfortable, either, not really. Just sort of warm and tingly and itchy, and sometimes inclined to hide her face.

One afternoon, it's raining, pouring, the water smacking down like tiny, wet fists on the landscape, on the people.

She's running, slipping, stumbling across the Lovat garden, towards their front door. Gramma informs her that Wybie's in the garage working on his bike, so she chokes down a long-suffering sigh and nods her thanks at Gramma before she whirls around and heads for the garage, rivers running down her long, green raincoat and into her swampers, making them squelch as she walks. She's rather annoyed by the time she reaches the garage, so without further ado, she grabs the closed garage door and wrenches it upwards.

There's a high-pitched yelp from inside. "Jeez, Wybie, since when are you so _jumpy_?" she complains loudly over the noisy weather, about to follow up with some other teasing remark when she discovers that he's sitting down and his pants are around his ankles, his face red and his hand somewhere it shouldn't be.

He's definitely _not_ working on his _bike_.

"Coraline!" he squawks, shock and humiliation etched across his wide, golden brown face. He hunches over almost double, closes his legs, tries his best to hide himself behind his big hands.

For a moment, Coraline freezes completely, can only gape at him, her feet like lead, her lungs unable to take in air. Then she swings around, gets ready to stumble away, even takes a few steps, but it's still pouring down like you wouldn't believe, and ghostly fingers of curiosity are tickling her brain.

Coraline returns.

"Coraline!" he repeats, more indignant than shocked now, scolding her while he tugs the hem of his baggy T-shirt down to cover himself. "Get _out_ of here!"

She moves towards him with heavy, hesitant steps. He leans backwards, looking terrified as he protects his crotch with both hands. What does he think she's gonna do, _kick_ him? As much as he's startled her, she knows she's the one in the wrong. It's his garage, and the door was closed.

"You should be more careful, Wybie," she murmurs, "what if I'd been your _grandmother_?"

"She'd _never_ go out in _this_ kinda weather," he assures her in a highly embarrassed tone, an agonized look on his face, as if somebody's stepped on his toes; and there's a jolt of that hormonal fury again, "now are you gonna _leave_ or what?"

Holding her breath for a moment, she exhales, shuts the garage door, pulls down the hood on her raincoat, pulls the zipper down a bit to give herself some ventilation, sinks down on an overturned bucket next to the crate he's sitting on and finally holds out her hand. It takes him a while to understand what she wants. His breath is shallow as he slowly removes his hand from his…_thing_ and places his hand in hers, long, dark fingers curling around her slender, pale ones.

"You're warm," she says.

"You're cold," he says.

Coraline rolls her eyes. "It's raining hard outside, genius, it's freezing."

Wybie squeezes her hand, moves his fingers a bit to warm her, get a bit of circulation going. "Well, um…" he begins, shifting uncomfortably on his crate.

"Well?" she prompts, grinning with more bravado than she's actually feeling, which is none. The rain drums away on the garage roof, cocooning them in its steady hum, repelling all other sounds that might be heard outside. No wonder he didn't hear her coming.

"R-right," he croaks, parting his legs slightly, lifting his T-shirt and shifting his hand so it's surrounding rather than covering; starting a bashful up and down motion, fingers sliding across the skin, which is much darker than the rest of him, which she knows has to do with the necessary blood flow. She stares at him, down there. It doesn't look intimidating; it does looks strange, unfamiliar, even if she's seen some on the internet and in school textbooks already, but also sorta almost…pretty, like it'd be nice to touch, warm and smooth, solid. His grip on her hand tightens, echoing the grip he has on his— well, she can at least _think_ it, can't she— his co— his di— apparently, she can't. This is too weird.

He makes this strangled sound in his throat that causes her to shiver. She swallows and looks at his face, can practically feel it heating up from here, bets it's even warmer than his hand now, and he stares back, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb as he trembles and grunts, and he closes his eyes. Heat pools between her thighs, muscles clenching.

It doesn't take long before he spills across the concrete floor and on his own hand in spurts of sticky-looking, thick, off-white liquid that seems kinda gross and that she assumes she'll get over and used to eventually but doesn't feel like getting anywhere _near_ right now.

The relaxed, dizzy, blissed-out expression on his face, though, _that_ she _wants,_ _that_ draws her in like a magnet. Letting go of his hand, she scoots closer and touches his face with suddenly clumsy fingers, kisses his soft, damp, hot mouth, gives herself time to linger. His face really is burning up. It's delicious.

When she leans back, satisfied, he gives her an abashed, bewildered, but pleased look before he starts searching for something to clean himself up with; spotting an oil-soaked rag flung across a wooden stool, he reaches for it.

"Oh, _eeww_, Wybie!" she declares, snatching up his wrist to stop him. He stares at her in alarmed incomprehension.

Coraline pulls out a big, wadded-up but completely clean ball of tissue paper from the pocket of her jeans and hands it to him. Considering how much gardening she participates in, and considering how they're still inclined to pick up banana slugs or poke around in streams or caves like kids (will they ever stop; will she ever want to?), she always fills her pockets with Kleenex before leaving the house. It's become a habit, an automatic action.

Glancing at her sheepishly, he starts mopping himself up. She stands up and turns around, lets him have his privacy.

"C-can…can I look at you when you…?" she hears him asking behind her, his voice low and uncertain. She can still hear the scrape and crinkle of tissue paper.

Now it's her face that's burning. "Not right now," she says evasively, glad she's got her back turned.

Afterwards, they run outside like headless chickens to get inside, trying and failing not to get wet from the rain, shoving each other and shrieking, and it's like they'd stepped into a different universe (and she should know what _that_ feels like) when they were in the garage, and _this_ is the real world, the fresh air and wind and rain slapping their faces and rinsing away the smell of motor oil and sex.

His grandmother asks if they're hungry, and they troop in single file to the kitchen sink to wash their hands and then to the kitchen table, like children, sitting down and chuckling nervously, providing his grandmother with innocent looks and answers and dutifully eating Brussel sprouts and lamb chops and potatoes and gravy, because they're _not_ children and have learned to eat whatever they're given (and in her case, after her father's cooking, eating at the Lovat house is seriously like eating at a five star restaurant).

She watches him as he loads the dishwasher for his grandmother after dinner, catches him watching her, too. She wonders if maybe he's come to the conclusion that the Mulder and Scully of Ashland is exactly what he wants them to be.

* * *

Coraline is nestled under her comforter, the covers right up to her nose, when there's a muffled, metallic thump on the wall as somebody places a ladder against it (nobody's using the drainpipe anymore). A few seconds later, there's a tapping at the window; she makes a complaint of a noise that tells the visitor clearly that she's heard them, but she's not planning on moving.

Wybie manages to pry the window open by himself, and soon she hears a couple of thuds as he takes his heavy, boat-like shoes off and drops them on the floor on the mat she's finally put under the window just for such an occasion. He knows Mom hates dirty floors. Dad isn't too fond of them, either, but he doesn't complain as much since he's not the one who has to clean them.

"You sick or something, Jonesy?"

Coraline opens her eyes, lets the comforter lower to beneath her chin, looks at him where he's standing in the middle of her floor, head tilted at a dramatic angle, as if only that allows him to search her face properly.

"No, it's just every girl's best friend, back for more," she informs him sourly, sticking out her tongue as she slides her arm out to pat her stomach over the comforter.

Wybie straightens back up. "Oh…downstairs lady stuff," he states, in an odd sort of tone that makes her wonder if he's joking or if he really is that dorky, but his next question, asked with a casual hint of concern, makes her hold back on the mocking: "Does it hurt, since you're in bed and all?"

Nodding, she flips back the comforter, revealing her favourite old sweatpants and a black T-shirt from the Ashland Shakespeare festival, bearing the legend 'The First Thing we do, Let's Kill all the Lawyers' (surprisingly, Mom laughed when Spink and Forcible gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday). Slowly, she pushes up the thin cotton, her pale stomach coming into view. "Here," she says, running a hand across the skin just above the hem of her pants, "here's where it hurts, mostly…cramps, they're kinda like somebody pinching your gut from the inside."

"Creepy," he remarks appreciatively, and she looks up, catching his sleepy smile. Walking over and dropping to his knees by the bed, he leans close, his hand joining hers on her stomach, palm flat against her skin; warm, big, rough yet also soft. The warmth of him seeps into her, soothes her, relaxes her; he starts moving his hand in slow circles. "Mmm…that kinda helps," she admits, smiling at him.

"Well, I wasn't a high level healer for nothing, y'know," he brags with a cocky grin, but it lacks his usual pizzazz. On closer inspection, he seems exhausted, his shoulders drooping, dark shadows under his eyes.

"Geek," she mutters, socking his arm lightly. "You look like shit today, by the way."

To her surprise, he crashes head first into her bare stomach, rubbing his face against her. Her stomach muscles jump as she laughs.

"I didn't get much sleep last night," he tells her, though it's muffled, as he lets his face roll around on her belly like a gleeful puppy frolicking in a meadow; she laughs harder as his hair tickles her, until he sighs and slumps again, yawning, his head and shoulders suddenly a dead weight on her.

"You're like a sack of potatoes," she states, poking his bare arm experimentally with a finger.

"Not often, but a couple of times…I've dreamt…that I really did fall down the old well…" he mumbles unexpectedly, voice vibrating against her sensitive abdomen, and it's like the admission is absorbed up into her, the words running through her veins until they reach her heart, stopping it.

Shaken, unsure how to respond, she shoots his messy hair a withering look. "You're _kidding_ me. So instead of going to sleep, you've been up all night playing _World __of __Dorkcraft_ or whatever it is you do? _Again_?"

"Fffmmpp," he breathes against her skin. She takes that as a yes.

"You suck, Wybie," she says matter-of-factly, pulling slightly at his hair.

He doesn't stir. He's already fallen asleep. "You suck," she repeats softly to herself.

His hair is still floppy and wild; removing the tiny twig she discovers tangled up in the back of it calms her. He went through a phase at twelve-thirteen where he basically chopped it all off, which hadn't suited him at all. It felt like a crime, like sawing the tusks off of an elephant or pulling out the tail feathers of a peacock or something. Not that she told him any of this; no, she just waited for it to grow back, because it was hard enough simply to acknowledge the fact that she derived any pleasure from his eccentric appearance.

His face, or what little of it that she can see from where it's pressed against her stomach, looks peaceful and content.

Wybie gives her a natural inclination to coo, which is frankly disturbing. Cooing is for pigeons and old ladies who bother people on the street about their babies.

"Coraline, how're you feeling? Did the Advil help?" calls Mom, knocking even as she opens the door, without waiting for an answer. Coraline huffs to herself; for all Mom knows, she could be naked in here or something— way to be rude.

Mom stops and gawks when she sees the neighbor boy slumped over her daughter's bed with his face buried in her daughter's naked stomach. Coraline wonders if that's exactly why Mom never properly knocks; either because she wants to catch Coraline at it if something inappropriate is going on, or possibly because she's previously imagined nothing inappropriate _would_ ever be going on, and therefore could just waltz in at any time.

Mom's still staring. Coraline tries and fails to think of something snappy to say.

Coraline breathes a sigh of relief when Wybie chooses this moment to make a little snort-snore of a sound and Mom chooses to find the situation cute and amusing rather than scandalous. It's not like he's _in _bed with her, anyway, it's just his head and arms, his knees are still on the floor…not that there aren't still things they could be doing in this position, of course, but she's so not even gonna go there.

"Now _that's_ an interesting cure for the cramps," Mom remarks wryly.

"Well, if you actually had a hot water bottle in the house, I wouldn't have to use _this_ dweeb," Coraline grumbles, still red in the face.

Mom tilts her hip, puts a hand on it, frowns at her. "You work that boy too hard, you know that? He's not your personal Igor."

Coraline scoffs. "What, not like I forced him!"

"You know," Mom says with a crooked, wistful sort of smile, "your father sometimes—"

"Lalalala, _so_ don't wanna hear what you do in your bedroom!" Coraline objects loudly, clamping her hands over her ears and clenching her eyes tightly shut, shaking her head from side to side on her pillow.

Mom sighs. "I wasn't going to say anything like— I only meant he massages my back, that sort of—"

"Lalalalaaa!"

"Okay," says Mom firmly, and Coraline drops her hands back down, opening her eyes, "you're _clearly _still enough of a big baby to be allowed to have a boy in your room, so I'll just go get back to work, right? Dad's cooking, dinner will be in half an hour…you can bring Wybie if you want, when he wakes up."

Coraline lifts her head to scowl at Mom's retreating back. "Dad's cooking? Not sure Wybie wants an early death by green goo!" she yells after her mother, who ignores her.

"Very funny, young lady!" retorts Dad from the kitchen, in his usual easygoing tone. "No goo for you!"

Coraline lets her head flop back down onto the pillow before glancing down. Wybie's slept through the whole thing, and now he's snoring again. Sometimes he still looks completely like a kid. Sometimes (often) she still feels like one.

It's fortunate that Mom hadn't chosen _yesterday_ to come bursting into her room— not that she could've, because the door was locked. Coraline wasn't reckless enough to do _that_ sort of stuff in this risky a place without taking some security measures…especially when she had an audience. He hadn't asked again, which was part of why she let him watch. And it was only fair, she reasoned.

His head is so warm and heavy on her tender stomach, his skin soft. He's shaved. That's a strange notion, Wybie shaving. Not that he needs it that often yet, but he still needs it at all, so y'know. It's the sort of thing that makes her look towards the future, makes her worry about college. She reaches out a hand to stroke his rough, springy curls. His scalp is warm, too. Nice.

Maybe they can check out Salem after high school. When she gets her license, she supposes it's not _that_ far. As for the kappa's grave, though, there's no way she's going looking for _that_ again.

He was shy about watching, and awkward, but he seemed so fascinated…and afterwards, he kissed her. She wonders when she'll let him look again. It's the 'when' that's scary, what with the complete lack of 'if' and all.

Coraline smiles. She doesn't scare easily.

**The ****End.**

* * *

**Author's ****notes:** Yeah, I know…Coraline and Wybie as teens, and even shipped…and even a horrible stumbling-across-somebody-masturbating cliché (I seem to like those). SON, I AM DISAPPOINT. I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. These kids are too adorkable not to ship when they're older. Forgive me. Tonight, I dine in hell.

Does anybody else just love the name 'Ashland', by the way? "I want to go to there."

**EDIT****(18.12.2011): **Changed "he _still_ has his heart set on going all the way up to Salem to redeem the spirits of the innocent people who were burned as witches" to "he _still_ has his heart set on going all the way up to Salem to free the spirits of the people who were forcibly committed to Oregon State Hospital" after reviewer **adamnemo42** graciously pointed out for me that the witch trials were set in Salem, Massachusetts, not Salem, Oregon. Thank you for the comment. Picture me facepalming right now. :P

**Going ****to ****a ****Desert ****Unknown:** Title stolen from the song _Heaven__Can__Wait_ by Charlotte Gainsbourg (I prefer the Nosaj Thing remix).

**Coraline's ****hair:** I'm assuming it's dyed blue and that brown is her natural hair color. I'm also assuming she'd experiment with other colors as she got older, and fire truck red seemed fitting.

'**The ****First ****Thing ****we ****do, ****Let's ****Kill ****all ****the ****Lawyers':** This Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare Festival T-shirt exists in real life. :D

**Internet:** I'm guessing the movie is set in present day since Coraline's mom is seen using a laptop and Coraline uses one of those flip-open cell phones…even if Coraline's dad's computer looks pretty ancient to me.

I know nothing about World of Warcraft, in case you're wondering. I basically pulled that high lever healer thing out of my ass.


End file.
